Morning runs `cross fields of green,

Where the hills rolled high and low,

When the sun’s slant glazed with honeyed light,

and the dew was all aglow,

*

We’d leap the gilded gullies,

And laugh when splash we did,

Watch flaring birds in cursive flight,

‘fore answering a challenger’s bid.

*

Not just a surge or press of pace,

Gauntlets of heart and lung,

But the questions that once did fabulists ask,

Whether in rhyming tone or sung.

*

The ones that spoke of purpose,

Asking why, and when, and how,

Queries which had no finite truth,

But in whose lee there lied the Tao.

*

So with wind a close companion,

We’d summon with full resolve,

That supplicant’s tool called effort,

As these riddles we sought to solve.

*

And afoot we’d take on such mysteries,

Even coming to affable accord,

As how to measure a life well-lived,

Without reduction to prosaic reward.

*

There was enough in just the doing,

The prize in the strides we took,

Adding in sum beyond the measure,

That of candle, bell and book.

*

Yet in the lessening of our pulsing gain,

As hearts and lungs retreated,

The hollow chamber of the now stilled air,

Made our wisdom feel depleted.

*

Still, we never diminished the searching,

Or our allegiance to an explorer’s cause,

As we sought the fullest expression,

Of our sacred native laws.

*

Ones we needn’t be reminded of,

To hold in close compliance,

Ones all men could live well through,

If accepted with full alliance.

*

But such are not the world’s ways yet,

Nor perhaps were ever meant to be,

Thus we witness the continuing dark shadows,

Men’s blind spots don’t allow them to see.

*

Still, such musing are ones worth sharing, I think,

If only to indulge the few,

Congregants who on early morning runs,

Seek an alternative to Sunday’s pew.

END